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Humbled

I am not imortal.

This seems silly to say, but we go through life thinking we have it figured out. If we get sick, we heal. We eat in moderation and we move on. I have not been one to get sick often. In fact, my whole family has been pretty healthy. until a couple years ago. I got shingles and then my kids all got chickenpox and then we moved from our tiny house in town to a very shaded house in the hills outside of town. Since we have lived here, there has been almost constant sickness with little breaks here and there. We discovered at the end of last spring that there is a pretty severe mold problem under the house. The house is not ours, it’s unfinished and it’s a good price…. a price we could not match anywhere else in this area. not even close. So moving isn’t really an option yet.

The kids have missed about a cumulative week of school each because of various sicknesses and multiple playdates with cousins. It has been difficult to process mentally, but I feel peace about being here. I believe God is using this place to build our immune systems and teach me a lot about loving my family. We are together most of the time without many outsiders in the mix. I grew up in a large family and I’m very happy to have people around me often. It has been a challenge not being able to open up our home to family and friends, but I do need to learn to look inward. I need to see my family first and prioritize and play with my kids. They wont be this little ever again. I don’t want to miss out on all their sweet little quarks and questions.

On a more spiritual note, I believe that God is allowing me to go through pressure and heat. difficult times to test me and expose the errors in my processes.

For the past 3 years I have been on a very intense health journey specifically related to diet. for years before this I tried a lot of different things with my family and my first big breakthrough was the paleo diet. My husband and I had very intense results from doing the whole30. Most of it, believe it or not, was brain function. I could think more clearly and so could Nate. We more or less stayed on that diet for a few years and then I was introduced to the Blood Type Diet. I refused to look into it because it seemed like an entirely new language. The idea that what we eat should be dependent on the type of blood we have. It took me 2 years to finally even pray about whether or not I should try it. I felt good about reading the book. Then I felt in my spirit that it was right.
The bible talks about life being in the blood. It makes sense based on my personal trainer back ground that there is no one-size-fits-all diet plan. So I gave it a go. My blood type is A so I gave up red meat and started introducing tofu. I started trying to emphasize more vegetables and gave up coconut. Chocolate has been hard, but I greatly reduced how much I was eating. The first thing I noticed was how well I was digesting. I had been plagued with constipation for a decade and when I started this diet, it got better.

During these three years, I have been fine tuning my diet, falling off track, getting back on track, cheating and being completely 100% compliant. I have added GAPS and FODMAP diet plans and gone through intense abdominal pain, allergy testing, NAET treatments and pregnancy. Last year This time, I was in a good place… kind of. My body was finally at a weight I liked and I was eating well. The issue was that I was fatigued all the time. Foods did not sound good ever and I had a lump growing in my abdomen. I was freaked out and a bit upset. I had been trying to heal my body for 2 straight years and now I had no idea what was going on. I made an appointment with my specialist who had already cleared me of any allergies and imbalances in my body so when I went in there she was listening to me and saw my concern and muscle tested me to find nothing wrong. I described the lump in my abdomen and I had kids with me so she was unable to feel it for herself. We made an appointment for the following week and I went home. as I was driving, I was recalling my conversation with the Dr. I had described my lump to her and my friend and my husband as a uterus. It didn’t don on me until that exact moment that all my symptoms made sense for pregnancy. I was terrified. I was completely done having babies, I hadn’t had a cycle since before my last baby was born and I had nothing to go on for when my due date might be. Not even the size of my uterus because this would be baby 5. I called a sister who always has tests sitting around and went and picked one up. Sure enough, I was pregnant. I went through an emotional ringer with that pregnancy. I have never felt so low. On my way to pick up my pregnancy test, I rounded a corner on the freeway and there was a very vivid beautiful rainbow right above the road. I felt a sense of peace like this was God’s intention. This baby has a purpose and I was the one he needed as a mom.

2 days later, God gave me a name and told me he was a boy. When I prayed about what his due date could possibly be, I kept getting December 11th as a conception date so I went with it. Everything was in the spirit. I was trusting my God and my body. It was beautiful, but it was still hard and took an embarrassingly long time to wrap my head around having a 5th child.

All that to say, I dropped the ball on my diet once I learned that I was pregnant. I did great through my whole first trimester, but I found out I was pregnant when I was 15 weeks along and just used it as an excuse to eat comfort foods. My comfort foods were things like Soy mocha latte’s and organic chocolate frozen yogurt. All the blueberries and smoothies and much less veggies and tofu. Occasionally i would pick up a gluten free cookie that always left me feeling pretty bloated. Postpartum, I used my exhaustion as an excuse to eat all the frozen yogurt I wanted and all the fancy coffees I wanted. I would still eat lots of turkey broth with onions and garlic and some kale, but it wasn’t erasing the damage from the cane sugar and gums and all the other ingredients that attack the body.

I kept feeling like God wanted me to focus on portion sizes. I searched in the blood type book and researched some online to see what kind of portions an A should eat, but never really followed through, because I like my food. I like eating plenty of what I like and for a long time, I could eat as much as I wanted and not gain…. Until I was postpartum with my 5th. I lost weight and was pretty skinny after two weeks, then started gaining. I became emotional about gaining and wanted to comfort eat even more. My Baby, Tekiah gained weight fast. He is currently almost 6 months and weighs around 20 lbs. He gained it all quick and my back couldn’t take it. I became even more emotional and felt pretty negative about most things. I felt like I deserved some joy and my source of joy was my food.

Fast forward to a month ago. I was struggling a lot with my food choices. God had been pressing me to stop eating gluten free pancakes and bagels. Which were eaten rarely, but too often. One Saturday morning, Nate asked If I wanted to make pancakes for the kids. I thought about it and felt like I shouldn’t eat it, but I was hungry so if I was going to make it for the kids, I was going to eat it myself because I didn’t want to make myself a separate breakfast. I agreed to making the pancakes. I ate 4 good size pancakes. Then later I ate another one for a snack. about 5 hours later I had crazy intense abdominal pain. This pain was familiar. I used to get it 2.5 years ago when my journey intensified. It’s horrible and does not go away no matter what you do until about 8-10 hours pass. I was in pain all night and it was mostly better Sunday evening. But I still had a lingering low back pain. I felt immediate regret about eating those pancakes and knew that God had been warning me for a long time and I had not listened. the back pain didn’t go away. A friend gave me a word from the Lord that included an eating plan: 7 fist sized portions every day spread out in separate meals and separate food groups. for example don’t eat veggies with meats or fruit with carbs. Wednesday night, I got hit with sickness. I had a headache, fever, muscle aches and couldn’t get out of bed. I tried to eat and drink, but didn’t want the food. I had to force it. I kept thinking I needed to go into the ER, but didn’t want to because I have a nursing baby and Nate had to work. Thursday Nate stayed home because I couldn’t function. He tried to help me drink and eat, but it was hard. I finally got about 40oz of liquid in my body by the evening. I started coughing and threw up all of it. no nausea… It just came out. I immediately knew I needed to go to the ER. Things weren’t right and I wasn’t getting better, I was just getting worse.

I was admitted for renal failure, metabolic acidosis and influenza A. I stayed for about 48 hours and then had horrible side effects from Tamaflu. A drug I should have researched before agreeing to take. I was down for the count for about 2 weeks and feel like my brain has only recently started working like normal. The flu attacked my kidneys so they started shutting down. I was severely dehydrated and the metabolic acidosis was from non functioning kidneys. I’m glad I went in to the hospital when I did because that could have gone from bad to worse quick.

It was a wake up call for me. I need to take care of my body and eat for
fuel, not for pleasure. My body needs specific nourishment that does no need to be made my comfort. I started really focusing on eating fist sized portions and it has done amazing things for my digestion. my inflammation has reduced greatly and I feel like I can handle more things. I just ordered a juicer so I’m excited to have that added to my tool belt to be sure and get lots and lots of green into my system. I’m going to be proactively meal planning so I can quickly eat what I need when I need it too.

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2 thoughts on “Humbled”

I’m really enjoying reading your posts! I’m myself on a road of discovery! Ive never had a great relationship with food, for no other reason than finding eating a bit of a waste of time! Ridiculous right? But when I grew up we never ate as a family, we always grabbed food whenever we were hungry and it was always eaten in great hurry so we could go back to whatever we were doing. Luckily I always went for healthy stuff, not because I believed I had to eat healthy but because it was convenient. Only after I had kids I started watching carefully what I ate because I know kids are copying me and I finally found that eating together is so much fun!
I just googled the blood type diet and I must say I want to know more! I’ll give it a try!
Now I actually have time! After having my second daughter I thought our family was complete! I had a perfect work/home ratio and everything was just the way I thought I wanted! The shock of getting pregnant and finding out we are having twins was rather shaky for my system! It took me a year after babies were born to finally appreciate that NOW my family is complete. although I am a stay at home mum, I actually love it! Who would have thought?! And I never thought I enjoyed so much watching my kids grow! You said it right: they stay little for such a short time! We play together and I actually have time to play with them. And we cook together! The girls just love baking and cooking and we have so much fun! I wish I could have done that myself growing up!!!
Sorry, never meant for such a long comment!

Lia, I’m so glad we have reconnected! What a beautiful place to be in with your family. To enjoy meals together and find happiness in being at home with your kids is wonderful.
Having surprise twins! Amazing! God knew what you needed. I cannot imagine the work that goes into having two little ones at once. You are super mom!
We love listening to the stories our kids tell at dinner and watching their unique personalities shine.
The Blood Type Diet is so great! I hope you are able to try it out. It has done our family so much good. Keep me posted on trying it out. We have 3 blood types represented in our home so integrating diet changes has been a mental challenge, but well worth it. Let me know if you need help getting started.